YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320×240 pixels using the Sorenson Spark codec (a variant of H.263),[86][87] with mono MP3 audio.[88] In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones.[89] In March 2008, a high-quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480×360 pixels.[90] In November 2008, 720p HD support was added. At the time of the 720p launch, the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9.[91] With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video compression format. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4K format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096×3072 pixels.[92][93] In June 2015, support for 8K resolution was added, with the videos playing at 7680×4320 pixels.[94] In November 2016, support for HDR video was added which can be encoded with Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) or Perceptual Quantizer (PQ).[95] HDR video can be encoded with the Rec. 2020 color space.[96]

But each of the three videos PewDiePie featured in his since-removed shoutout of the E;R channel featured fairly obvious examples of the channel’s offensive content — in fact, not only did part one of the Death Note review that Kjellberg said he liked directly invoke a racial slur in its video description (the description has since been edited), but the first 15 seconds of part two contain a blatant reference to a 2017 incident in which Kjellberg himself dropped a racial slur, strategically edited but unmissable if you’re familiar with the clip in question — which most of Kjellberg’s followers would reasonably be.
And while PewDiePie only follows a few hundred people on Twitter, many of them are alt-right-identified figures — including Peterson, the prominent Gamergate writer Ian Miles Cheong, Infowars editor Paul Joseph Watson, the alt-right YouTube philosopher Stefan Molyneux, the alt-right Canadian blogger Lauren Southern, the recently “redpilled” YouTube personality Laci Green, and leading figures of YouTube’s reactionary right-wing community, like Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro. PewDiePie also followed notorious alt-right YouTuber Sargon of Akkad until the latter’s suspension from Twitter last year. (Kjellberg has not responded to a request from Vox for comment.)

The way advertising works with YouTube is probably one of the most complicated things that comes with trying to make money off of YouTube. The real estimate comes out to about $7.50 per 1,000 impressions. The difficult part is actually defining the word ‘impressions.’ The only time you make money on YouTube is when someone interacts with your ad or when it leaves an ‘impression’ on them.

The ChuChu guys didn’t set out to make educational programming. They were just making videos for fun. How were they to know they’d become a global force in children’s entertainment? As time went on and the staff expanded, the company created a teaching series, called Learning English Is Fun, and worked with a preschool company to develop an app, ChuChu School, that has an explicitly didactic purpose. But generally speaking, Chandar and Krishnan just wanted their videos to be wholesome—to deliver entertainment that perhaps provided kids with a dose of moral instruction.

In politics, you need a good villain. It is far easier for environmentalists to rail against Donald Trump for weakening the Clean Water Act than it is to rail against Proposed Rule 83 FR 32227. And it was far easier for Democrats to criticize Scott Pruitt—the former EPA administrator who resigned in June under not so much a cloud of corruption as a thundering cumulonimbus of it—than it has been for them to focus attention on Andrew Wheeler, his quieter and more effective replacement.

In Libya and Egypt, the Innocence of Muslims trailer was blamed[by whom?] for violent protests in September 2012. YouTube stated that "This video—which is widely available on the Web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries."[433][434]

The results reflect YouTube’s struggles to expand its core audience beyond teens and tweens. Many YouTube users treat the site as a video repository to be accessed from links or embedded video players posted elsewhere, rather than visiting YouTube.com daily. Google executives want them to turn on YouTube the way they turn on television, as a habit, where they can expect to find different “channels” of entertainment.
All the estimates by research firms and analysts, says Kirjner, are "based more on belief and anecdotes than on truly representative data. What's more -- beyond anecdotes either shared by Google or collected through discussions with ad buyers, creators and multichannel network operators -- we know very little about what is available on YouTube, what people watch and how much it gets watched."
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is almost precisely the problem that the rest of the media world finds itself in. Because quality is hard to measure, the numbers that exist are the ones that describe attention, not effect: views, watch time, completion rate, subscribers. YouTube uses those metrics, ostensibly objectively, when it recommends videos. But as Theodore Porter, the great historian of science and technology, put it in his book Trust in Numbers, “Quantification is a way of making decisions without seeming to decide.”
ChuChu does not employ the weird keyword-stuffed titles used by lower-rent YouTube channels. The company’s titles are simple, sunny, consistent. Its theory of media is that good stuff wins, which is why its videos have won. “We know what our subscribers want, and we give it to them,” Chandar says. ChuChu says it adds roughly 40,000 subscribers a day.

ChuChu TV, the company responsible for some of the most widely viewed toddler content on YouTube, has a suitably cute origin story. Vinoth Chandar, the CEO, had always played around on YouTube, making Hindu devotionals and little videos of his father, a well-known Indian music producer. But after he and his wife had a baby daughter, whom they nicknamed “Chu Chu,” he realized he had a new audience—of one. He drew a Chu Chu–like character in Flash, the animation program, and then created a short video of the girl dancing to the popular and decidedly unwoke Indian nursery rhyme “Chubby Cheeks.” (“Curly hair, very fair / Eyes are blue, lovely too / Teacher’s pet, is that you?”)

Though the furor around PewDiePie’s repeated antics has subsided after each of these incidents, his courting of alt-right ideas has not. Though he has never openly identified himself as a member or supporter of the alt-right, he has continued to like and promote channels run by alt-right-affiliated users, and earlier this year, he made a video in which he reviewed the right-wing personality and alt-right hero Jordan Peterson’s controversial self-help book. In the review, PewDiePie endorsed the book, called it a “fun” read, and said he would take some of its advice.

In any case, if you have incontrovertible evidence that YouTube is actually unprofitable today, and why that is (i.e. is it because they’re just investing all that profit back into growth, or are their upkeep costs truly just on the order of multiple billions of dollars?), would love to see it and adjust this accordingly. Doesn’t really change any of the points made though.

Most modern smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, either within an application or through an optimized website. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, using RTSP streaming for the video.[133] Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.[134] Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone.[135] In July 2010, the mobile version of the site was relaunched based on HTML5, avoiding the need to use Adobe Flash Player and optimized for use with touch screen controls.[136] The mobile version is also available as an app for the Android platform.[137][138] In September 2012, YouTube launched its first app for the iPhone, following the decision to drop YouTube as one of the preloaded apps in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 operating system.[139] According to GlobalWebIndex, YouTube was used by 35% of smartphone users between April and June 2013, making it the third-most used app.[140]

This goes against what has drawn many audiences to the platform in the first place. YouTube has a history of LGBT acceptance – being the home of the “it gets better” videos, in which celebrities and public figures tell their coming out stories. Many people have also spoken about how YouTube’s videos on transitioning or mental health helped them greatly. So given this, it is hoped that going forward, YouTube also remembers to pay attention to their communities and audiences as well as the big brands and content creators.
In order for a YouTuber to get paid for an ad, the viewer of their video must have Ad-Block turned off (meaning they will see all the ads on videos) and must watch at least 30 seconds of videos they could otherwise skip. Or, this will work if the viewer sees smaller ads like banner ads, according to YouTuber Mah-Dry-Bread. The money generated from the viewer watching these ads is split between YouTube and your channel.
The YouTube interface suggests which local version should be chosen on the basis of the IP address of the user. In some cases, the message "This video is not available in your country" may appear because of copyright restrictions or inappropriate content.[200] The interface of the YouTube website is available in 76 language versions, including Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Bengali, Burmese, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Laotian, Mongolian, Persian and Uzbek, which do not have local channel versions. Access to YouTube was blocked in Turkey between 2008 and 2010, following controversy over the posting of videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and some material offensive to Muslims.[201][202] In October 2012, a local version of YouTube was launched in Turkey, with the domain youtube.com.tr. The local version is subject to the content regulations found in Turkish law.[203] In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009.[204] In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.[205]
Maybe better or more refined solutions exist, but if the history of children’s television teaches us anything, it’s that the market alone will not generate the best outcomes for kids. Nor is the United States government likely to demand change, at least not without prompting. Heroes will have to emerge to push for change in the new YouTube’d world, just as they did in the early days of broadcast children’s TV. And not all of those heroes will come from the Western world. They’ll come from all over the globe, maybe even Chennai.
There are over a million members of the YouTube Partner Program.[298] According to TubeMogul, in 2013 a pre-roll advertisement on YouTube (one that is shown before the video starts) cost advertisers on average $7.60 per 1000 views. Usually no more than half of eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers.[299]

In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.[51] In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30% of videos accounted for 99% of views on the site.[52] In November 2011, the Google+ social networking site was integrated directly with YouTube and the Chrome web browser, allowing YouTube videos to be viewed from within the Google+ interface.[53]